A/H1N1 by the Numbers June 28, 2009

All the brouhaha over swine flu has been blown way out of proportion. While no one will dispute that it’s good for people to be more conscious about hygiene and health issues, the general reaction to the outbreak-that-sort-of-isn’t was overly knee-jerk and impractical. Media coverage helped stoke a sense of paranoia over the issue (especially in these parts), and official government responses to it were only slightly better, if equally useless (again, especially in these parts).

Disagree? This month’s issue of Wired Magazine should make a believer out of you. Armed with nothing but cold hard facts, Patrick Di Justo makes it painfully obvious that A/H1N1 is hardly hellfire and brimstone. Hysteria’s more like it.

So there. Crisis averted. Let’s all just get on with our lives. Ah-choo.